Microsoft adds Copilot AI assistant to Windows 11 Like the Copilot sidebars we’ve seen in Edge, Office apps, and GitHub, Windows Copilot is integrated directly into Windows 11 and available to open and use from the taskbar. Applications and programs.
“Once open, the Windows Copilot sidebar is consistent across your apps, programs, and windows, always available to act as your personal assistant,” explains Panos Panay, head of Windows and devices at Microsoft. “It makes every user a power user, empowering you to take action, customize your settings and connect seamlessly to your favorite apps.”
You can summarize, rewrite, or explain content you see in the Windows Copilot app. It looks similar to the dialog box found in Bing Chat, so you can ask common questions and things you would normally ask in a search engine.
It doesn’t directly replace the search bar on the Windows 11 taskbar and is instead a separate Copilot button, similar to how Cortana has its own dedicated space on the taskbar in Windows 10. Windows Copilot is a “personal assistant” According to MicrosoftIt sounds like Microsoft has described Cortana as a “personal productivity assistant.”
Since CoPilot is integrated into Windows, you can ask this assistant to “adjust my settings so I can focus” or perform other actions on the computer. That’s more than the basic Bing Chat link Microsoft added to the taskbar earlier this year.
Because Windows Copilot is built on the same foundation as Bing Chat, Microsoft allows developers to extend plugins written for Bing or OpenAI’s ChatGPT to this AI-powered assistant. This opens up Windows Copilot to many new functions that developers create for ChatGBT and Ping, and future improvements will automatically be ported to Windows Copilot.
Microsoft has been hinting at building AI features into Windows for the past six months, after Panay said in January that “AI is going to reinvent how you do everything in Windows.” Many expected Microsoft to wait until the next major version of Windows, but the company is clearly moving forward with its Windows AI ambitions.
Microsoft will now begin testing Windows Copilot publicly in June before rolling it out more broadly to existing Windows 11 users.
